Committing to a Bible reading plan is not for everyone. It can be too restricting for some and too demanding for others.

As for me, I enjoy the discipline instilled by a Bible reading plan. Not only does it encourage me to spend quality time in Scripture daily, but it also forces me to read the parts I might otherwise neglect. The book of Leviticus leaps to the front of my mind.

I’m doing things a little differently this coming year. While I’m accustomed to using a year-long plan, I’ve decided to pick up the pace this time around. Instead of reading the entire Bible once in one year, I’ll read it from cover to cover almost four times, an endeavor which demands up to an hour a day of my already busy schedule. I intend to consume God’s words “when [I] sit at home and when [I] walk along the road, when [I] lie down and when [I] get up” (Dt 6:7). I’ll have no choice if I want to read the Bible every ninety-two days.

Please join me. Bookmark this page or print a copy. Even if you’re hesitant to devote an hour each day to reading the Bible, the guide I’ve created will be useful. Think of it this way. Even if you slack off eighty-nine days out of the year, you will still read the entire Bible three times. (92 days x 3 = 276 days of Bible reading; 365 days in a year – 276 days of Bible reading = 89 days off.)

The Sola Scriptura Bible Project

You may notice that my reading plan puts the books of the Bible in a strange order. There is a method behind the madness. I have designed this guide around The NIV Sola Scriptura Bible Project, a relatively new four-volume reader’s Bible. I’ll quote from the preface:

The books of the Bible were written or recorded individually. When they were gathered together, they were placed into a variety of orders. Unfortunately, the order in which today’s readers typically encounter these books is yet another factor that hinders their understanding. Paul’s letters, for example, have been put in order of length. They are badly out of historical order, and this makes it difficult to read them with an appreciation for where they fit in the course of his life or how they express the development of his thought. The traditional order of the biblical books can also encourage misunderstandings of what kind of writing a particular work is. For example, the book of James has strong affinities with other biblical books in the wisdom literature. But it’s typically placed within a group of letters, suggesting that it, too, should be read as a letter. To help readers overcome such difficulties, we’ve sought to order the books so that their literary types, their circumstances of composition and the theological traditions they reflect will be evident.